


Friendly Monsters

by Wanderbird



Series: Misc Linked Universe things [3]
Category: Linked Universe - Fandom, The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:08:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27234748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wanderbird/pseuds/Wanderbird
Summary: This—Wild held his breath, crouched safely in the bushes out of sight. This was weird.Wolfie sighed.Gentle teeth deposited the potion bottle on the ground. Wolfie had stolen that potion, for some reason, right off of Legend’s belt when no-one but Wild was looking. Wild had kind of been expecting him to wander off, of course, with that ugly gash on his back leg. Wolfie always disappeared when he needed to heal, but the potion? This was absurd. Wolfie couldn’t even *use* potions.So Wild followed, as silently as he could.This is a gift for Aufi!
Relationships: Twilight & Wild (Linked Universe)
Series: Misc Linked Universe things [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2103576
Comments: 1
Kudos: 68





	Friendly Monsters

**Author's Note:**

> Like I said, this is a gift for Aufi, loosely based on her art at https://aufi-creative-mind.tumblr.com/post/626710252317966336/legend-of-zelda-soabout-their-canon-heights  
> Hope you enjoy it! 
> 
> Check out her tumblr and instagram https://www.instagram.com/aufigir1/?hl=en

It was one thing to just _know,_ in his head, that there was something uncomfortably intelligent about the enormous wolf that had followed him around for years. It was one thing to suspect, ever since the Great Deku Tree’s cryptic hints, that _maybe_ the wolf had something to do with the whole Hero of Courage reincarnation thing.

But this—Wild held his breath, crouched safely in the bushes out of sight. This was _weird._

Wolfie sighed.  
Gentle teeth deposited the potion bottle on the ground. Wolfie had _stolen_ that potion, for some reason, right off of Legend’s belt when no-one but Wild was looking. Wild had kind of been expecting him to wander off, of course, with that ugly gash on his back leg. Wolfie always disappeared when he needed to heal, but the potion? This was absurd. Wolfie couldn’t even _use_ potions. So Wild had followed, as silently as he could.

Gingerly, the wolf flopped over, injured leg stretched out to one side.  
It closed its eyes.

Wild couldn’t help but suck in a breath when it happened—geometric shadows spread like vines from Wolfie’s forehead, growing and shifting and _pulsing_ in awful, angular unison. He couldn’t see Wolfie anymore, beneath that mess. Even weirder was the way it moved—that wasn’t a wolf any longer. It couldn’t be. The whole shape was wrong.

  
And then the shadows cleared, and grubby but familiar figure laid out on the forest floor, clutching something that looked kind of like a pinecone but that positively _radiated_ evil.

“Ugh.” Twilight groaned. Or possibly the shadow creature that looked like Twilight, Wild couldn’t be sure. He had never encountered anything of the sort before, but… well. This wasn’t his Hyrule.  
The creature sat up. Twilight took a small handful of some sort of seed from his pouch, uncorked the potion, and downed it in a few quick gulps. He made a face. “Red potion plus bokoblin guts, what a wonderful combination,” Twilight muttered. He tossed the seeds in his mouth and finally started to relax. They looked like cloves.  
The leg was healing, at least. And whatever this was couldn’t be all bad if it took an axe to the leg for Time in that last fight, right? Wild nodded to himself. _Right_. He’d seen weirder things than this, he could handle confronting a creature that shapeshifted between the wolf who’d accompanied him for ages and another hero of courage! The anxiety knotting his stomach was therefore totally unwarranted.

Wild stood up.

It was comforting, at least, to know he’d managed to sneak up on whatever it was—Twilight’s head whirled around to face him, arms braced against the ground. He didn’t look aggressive, just—alarmed. And then resigned, as Wild didn’t move.  
“Look,” The creature began.  
“Who are you?” Wild interrupted. He forced his voice to be flat, controlled, as free of emotion as he could manage while he drew his bow. The thing being able to talk was a good sign, at least. Monsters, as a general rule, didn’t.  
“I’m…” it hesitated, chewing on those dark seeds it ate earlier. Definitely cloves. Leave it to Twilight to actually _like_ those things—though maybe it made sense, as the spice would definitely help drown out the taste of monster guts. “You’ve known me longer as Wolfie, but my name is Link. So is yours. I’m the one you guys are calling Twilight, except the old man calls me Pup, and you summoned me years ago with a flute given to you by the Great Deku Tree.”  
The creature looked up, and it looked afraid. Why on Hylia’s green earth would it be _scared?  
_“This thing is the remnant of curse put on me a long time ago, but I use it now to switch into the form of a wolf and back again.” One hand picked up the pinecone thing from the grass, tucking it safely away in his belt. “Come on, Wild. You didn’t shoot me when I just looked like an evil wolf and couldn’t change back, _please_ don’t shoot me now.”

Wild stayed silent.  
They hadn’t mentioned the name Link after their initial meetings, it just got everyone confused. So how would a monster know it? And those other bits of information… If this thing had been impersonating Wolfie, it would have had to do so for a long time if it managed to learn all that. After a long moment, Wild pointed his bow to the ground. He kept the arrow on the string, though. No reason not to be cautious. “Why the subterfuge?” he finally asked. He’d known something was weird about the wolf. This… didn’t exactly make sense, but it might not be _impossible._ And come to think of it, Wild wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Twilight and Wolfie in the same place to start with. “Why did you never talk to me in human form before? Why not reveal it to the rest of the group, why keep sneaking off?”

Twilight sighed. “Why do you think?” he asked softly. “Like I said, I _couldn’t_ change before. Every time you summoned me, it pulled me out of my own world and into wolf shape. I couldn’t change back while I was in your Hyrule. And now—” he hesitated, before gesturing over to Wild. “This is exactly why I didn’t tell anyone. People either run screaming from the monster, or they try and kill it.”  
“I never tried to kill you.”  
The farmer raised a dubious eyebrow. “Yeah, but when we met the first thing I did was tackle a moblin that had been two seconds from crushing you. You’re kind of the exception there.” His sarcasm faded. “Or, of course, they come into contact with the magic that cursed me and become obsessed, or possessed, or whatever it does. I don’t know the details.”

“Oh come on.” Wild rolled his eyes. “We’re all Link here. I wouldn’t worry about that part.”

“It was strong enough to take over Zelda.”

Wild froze.  
“When I’m all the way in wolf form, it seems to be contained enough that the magic isn’t an issue,” Twilight explained. “Same if I’m in human form, and it’s stuck in its talisman, so long as I keep it mostly out of sight. It’s the in-between that can cause issues, or examining the remains of the curse, or anything like that. Even if _somehow_ the rest of you would all still trust me if you knew, I don’t want to risk spreading Twili magic anymore than I have to. Please don’t make me.”  
Wild knew he should say something there, but his brain didn’t want to cooperate. No words came to mind. Still, his reasoning made sense, so Wild at least managed to relax the arm holding his bow.

“I’ll leave if you insist. Find a way to get home on my own, or solve these monster invasions on my own. But _don’t_ tell anyone.”

Wild managed an answer at long last. “I… believe you,” he said slowly. He finally took the arrow from the string, shoving bow over his shoulder and arrow into his mess of a quiver. “And I won’t tell anyone.” He wandered closer, now that Twilight’s leg was healed, and offered his fellow Link a hand up. Before long, they were standing face-to-face again—though Twilight was half a head shorter than him. “The Great Deku Tree talked about you, yknow. It makes a lot more sense now that I know you and Wolfie are the same person.” A grin flashed across Wild’s face. “I always thought you’d be taller.”

“Wha—” Twilight made an affronted noise, and Wild utterly failed to smother a laugh. “Excuse you, I am still your senior here! And your _mentor!_ Short or not!”  
“You’re shorter than all but three of us! And Wind is still growing! You’re practically _taller_ as a wolf!”  
“You’re the one who needs to _stop growing!”_ The farmer threw his hands up in the air. “I swear, it’s like being surrounded by unusually scrawny gorons!”

They bickered all the way back to camp.  
  
  



End file.
